Life should not only be lived; it should be celebrated at times. The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is life to celebrate. Eventually, life starts turning to live,beautiful and charming.

I have been celebrating my birthdays with my friends and family for long. But having a birthday celebration at Shandong University (SDU) (Qingdao) was really a magnificent experience for me. I was not expecting that much love from my community members, or I was expecting some simple and formal wishes as we normally do on birthdays. But it was amazing what my friends did. When it turned to 12:00 a.m., I looked at my mobile and waited for the birthday wishes from my family and friends. However, I didn't receive any wish from SDU students. I felt a bit low of this.

Soon after, two of my community members came to my room and informed, "Some students are fighting at the washing area,let's go there and stop them." I was shocked hearing this and went among them. When I entered the washing area, I saw stars sparkling into the dark, a lot of people standing and looking at me with smiles at their faces, passing full of love and happy gestures, colourful balloons were waving alongside the walls, a very beautiful and delicious cake having my pictures over it, …I was just like shocked with joy and speechless. Well, they welcomed me inside by singing birthday songs, hugs, and prayers. I cut the cake,and then we had great fun: chitchats, eating, drinking (traditional milk tea), pinching and burstingthe balloons. They rolled a part of the cake over my face.

Eventually, I really felt like home at SDU, just like I'm living with my own family and best friends. It's not easy to live outside your home and country for a period of 2-4 years. However, it has been a great pleasure to live in this kind of healthy, beautiful, and very friendly environment at SDU. I wouldlike topay my gratitude to all the participants and the SDU for giving us an opportunity to live in such aniceenvironment.

Written by: Mehran Idris Khan from the School of Law, SDU (Qingdao)

Edited by: Xie Tingting, Xiang Rui